STUDENTS LEARNING STRATEGIES FOR SPEAKING SKILL

Ilma Zahriyatun Nadhiroh, Robeta Risna

State Institute of Islamic Studies of Jember

e-mail: ilmaazn@gmail.com, dewirobet579@gmail.com

Abstract

This research was done to research the learning strategies used by the highest class BIC (Bina Insan
Cendekia) in developing their speaking skills as well as the differences between the learning strategies. The
reason for conducting this research was the fact that the competency of many students in speaking English
was still considered unsatisfactory in MAN 1 Jember. We postulated that one aspect involved in the process of
developing speaking skills was the learning strategies used by the learners. In this research, the data was
collected through field research by means of Data Condensation, Display Data, Conclusion Drawing. The result
of this research indicated that high performance speaking students had better balance in using all kinds of
learning strategies (memory, cognitive, compensatory, metacognitive, affective, and social) for enhancing their
speaking skills. Based on the research results, it is suggested that students should be trained to be more aware
of their own speaking learning strategies. They should use appropriate language learning strategies more
consciously, purposefully, and frequently to be more successful in developing their speaking skills.

keywords: Learning strategies, Speaking skill

Introduction
In Indonesia, English become as a
foreign language, for it is a language studied
in an environment where it is not the first
language means for daily interaction and the
use of the language is restricted. Even though
English is said to be difficult to learn and
challenging to use, it keeps people to interest
learn about it.
In English there are four key language
skills, one of them is speaking skill which is
becoming the most important skill that must
be known well in learning a new language.
For most people mastering speaking skills is
the single most important aspect of learning a
foreign language. People considered to be
mastered in English if they can speak it.
(Nunan, 1991, p. 39). In addition, Patel and
Jain (2008, p. 29) declared that the main
function of language are to communicate,
express feeling, giving idea. Therefore, it is
clearly that language is a means of
communication. Speaking skill clearly
indicates that the learner knows how to use
that language.
However, speaking a foreign
language is not an easy skill to be learnt by
learners. Learners consider speaking as the
most difficult skill since it needs great courage
as well as preparation to speak well in the
new language. Regarding this, Brown (2004, p.
172) stated that speaking has five
components namely: grammar, vocabulary,
comprehension, fluency and pronunciation.
Students have to be aware of these
components. Before they speak, they should
know and think what they will say; therefore,
they need to have many ideas in their mind
about what they will say. In addition, students
must be able to use correct pronunciation;
otherwise it will be difficult for listeners to
understand them. Moreover, in order to be
able to speak with fluent and not false, they
must have some the vocabularies and must be
able to arrange their sentences so that they
can be understood. If they can speak English
well means that they are able to master those
five components.
In reality, the competency of senior
high school students in Indonesia in speaking
English is still a problem of interest. According
to the recent curriculum, Curriculum 2013,
students are expected to be able to express
either transactional or interpersonal
communication in a daily life term, for
example expressing and responding to
sympathy. This means that the curriculum
objective of teaching speaking is to enable
students to understand and use the language
with well in accordance with the appropriate
situation; for instance, expressing and
responding to sympathy. However, many
senior high school students still have low the
capability to express ideas, thoughts, and
feelings clearly. They surely face difficulties
that blocked them to be competent at
speaking; such as lack of vocabulary, poor or
unusual pronunciation, and also poor
grammar (Heriansyah, 2012, p. 31). In fact,
the time spend by the students to learn about
these skills is thought to be long time than
usual. Furthermore, although there have been
a variety of language teaching methods
introduced at schools which emphasize the
use of the English language in real life
situations and for social interaction in order to
expansion the students‟ skills, the outcomes
are still not satisfying.
The trouble is not only comes from
the method or teaching strategy which is
applied by the teacher but also it believes that
some problems come from the learners
themselves. One of the aspects that are
involved in the process of developing speaking
skills is the language learning strategies used
by the learners themselves. This is how the
learners learn by themselves. Learning
strategies are steps taken by students to
improve their own learning (Oxford, 1990, p.
1). Listening to English songs, find partners to
speak English, watching English movues, and
etc are some examples of learning strategies
used by learners to develop their speaking
skills. Language learning strategies constitute
a useful tool kit for active and conscious
learning, and these strategies pave the way
toward greater language learning proficiency
(Dörnyei, 2005). It means that language
learning is one of the important tools to
improve students’ speaking skill.
In addition, Oxford (1990, p. 8) also
stated that a major contribution for
development of communicative competence
is by the use of appropiate language learning
strategies. It can be assumed that if
inappropriate strategies are applied it will not
result in much improvement of proficiency to
be communicatively competent. Thus,
learning strategies are among the main
factors that help to determine how, and how
well, learners learn a foreign language. Based
on the results of a primary research at a
Islamic Senior High School in Jember at BIC
(Bina Insan Cendekia) class , it was found that
students used a variety of learning strategies
to help their progress in developing speaking
skills. It was also discovered that each student
can study those learning strategies which they
considered helpful to them.
Based on the background described
above, this research focuses on the following
one question: What are learning strategies
used by students of BIC (Bina Insan Cendekia)
class to develop their speaking skill?
Accordingly, the research objectives in
this research are to find out the learning
strategies used by students with the highest
class speaking performance to develop their
speaking Skill.
Methodology
This research used a qualitative
method. According to Lodico “qualitative
research reports data in a narrative (using
words rather than numbers) form, Further,
Donal Ary stated that qualitative research is
research that seeks to understand a
phenomenon by focusing on the total picture
rather than breaking it down into variables.
The goal of qualitative research is a holistic
picture and depth of understanding rather
than a numeric analysis of data. The
researchers tried to describe the learning
strategies used by BIC students to improve
their speaking skills.
This research was conducted at
Madrasah Aliyah Negeri (MAN) 1 Jember. The
subject of this research was the second-grade
students of MAN 1 Jember exactly BIC class.
The reason why the researchers chose BIC
students was that they had high speaking
performance interviews and they had their
own learning strategies to improve their
speaking skills.
To obtain the data of the research,
the technique of data collecting used in this
research are; interview, and document
analysis. According to Arikunto’s
classifications, there are three kinds of such
as; Unstructured, structured, and semi-
structured. The researchers applied a semi-
structured interview which is the interviewers
used a set of question and the interviewer
also elaborated on the unpredictable question
to the informant. Applying this kind of
interview is to create a relax and flexible
situation so the subjects or informants will
feel comfortable to share the information
they have. The interviews were done in
Indonesia then the responses were
transcribed into English. In this section, the
data which was gotten by the researchers
were learning strategies which are used by
BIC students to improve their speaking skill.
and their speaking Ary et al. stated that
document analysis can be written or text-
based artifacts or non-written records. The
researchers used students’ achievement
Finding
To have a better comprehension of
spoken English, students tended to ask their
partners to use synonyms, speak slowly, use
simple words, predicted meaning, paying
more attention to their partners, observing
their gestures and body language if they
found it hard to understand what was being
said. While to make sure their speech was
understood, they would choose to explain
clearly what they said by using synonyms and
even native language. They also used gestures
and body language, repeated words or
sentences being said, and asked for
confirmation of their speaking partners'
understanding.
In order to make their fluency better,
students said that they spoke to people
including their classmates and teachers in
daily conversation even just a sentence. They
also said that they trained to speak English by
themselves in front of the mirror. They chose
records for getting prior information about
the BIC students which had high speaking
performance.
After doing the interview and
document analysis, the researchers analyzed
the data based on interview’s note. All of the
data that had been collected will be analyzed
in several steps. As mentioned by Miles,
Huberman, and Saldana, there are three steps
in conducting the data analysis process in
qualitative research such as Data
Condensation, Display Data, Conclusion
Drawing.
In qualitative research, there are
some techniques that can increase the
researchers'' data validity. The validity of the
research is very important in research. The
researchers can use triangulation as one of
the data validity techniques. Triangulation is a
technique to check the trustworthiness of
data which uses something else to be
compared toward that data interviews.
to stay in contact with English culture by
watching, listening, and reading things in
English to try to feel comfortable when using
English was one of the strategies used.
To enrich vocabulary, BIC students
chose memorization. They made a note about
the vocabulary that should be memorized in a
day. Then they practice it. They also added
they memorized words by reading online
articles given and predicting meanings based
on the reading context. They also responded
that they used to make quotes on Instagram
and Whatsapp where they found and learned
some new words as well.
In terms of improving pronunciation,
BIC students said that they trained their
accent by listening to native speakers'
conversations and songs in the digital
platform, repeating and imitating sounds of
words, watched English movies. They added
that they consulted dictionary applications
such as U-dictionary and kamusku to know
how a word is pronounced. Some of them
sang the lyrics to English songs. They also
asked their teachers how to pronounce the
words.
BIC students used various strategies
to improve their understanding of grammar
such as memorizing tenses and grammar
patterns, reviewing school lessons, practice
the grammar in daily conversation and making
sentences, focused on English speakers'
writings and talks and then imitated them.
Other students spent some of their time
reading grammar books and asked their
teachers for explanations when they faced
difficulties.
From the data gathered above, the
researchers grouped the students’ learning
strategies as follow:
a. Memory strategy
1. Memorizing words by reading
online article
2. Memorizing tenses and grammar
patterns
b. Cogniitive strategy
1. Write quotes on instragam and
whatsapp
2. Predicting the meaning based on
the context
3. Observing the partner’s gestures
and body language
4. Making a note about vocabulary
that should be memorized
5. Reviewing school lessons
(grammar)
6. Practicing the grammar through
making sentence
7. Reading grammar books
8. Listening to English song in digital
platform
9. Watching English Movie
10. Listening to native speakers
c. Compensation strategy
1. Using synonym in English
2. Using simple words
3. repeating words or sentences
being said to get better
understanding
d. Metacognitive strategy
1. Reading English books/articles
2. Read the lyric of the songs
3. They trained themselves to speak
in front of mirror
e. Affective strategy
1. Stay in contact in with English
culture
f. Social strategy
1. Paying more attention to their
partners
2. Ask for confirmation of their
speaking partners understanding
3. Spoke to people including their
classmate and teachers in daily
conversation
4. Ask the teacher how to
pronounce the words
5. Ask the teachers for explanation if
they found difficulties
Discussion
From the result of interview, the
reaserchers noted that the learning strategies
most often used by the BIC class was usually
cognitive and social strategy. The learning
strategies that were not usually used were
memory and affective strategy. Meanwhile,
compensation and metacognitive were used
equally.
These results indicate that students
seem to be more aware of their language
needs; thus, they tended to utilize strategies
that would help the master language through
practicing, reasoning, and analyzing, as well as
strategies that allow them to control their
own learning through planning strategies and
evaluating results. Moreover, these learners
spent a great deal of time exercising with the
people around them to get better speaking
skill.
Furthermore, through the data
gathered from the interviews, it became
apparent that BIC students used more some
of the strategies. O’Malley and Chamot stated
that successful learners use a combination of
learning strategies.
Conclusion
The finding of the research showed
that BIC students employed 24 strategies to
help them improve their speaking skill. On the
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